The Transient Sorceress

"A sorceress' place is to question why things even exist at all. New ranking event "The Transient Sorceress" available! ★None remember the names of those who do not fight★"

- In-game description

The Transient Sorceress is a Ranked "battle tower" event offered in September 2019. It features a progressive battle against Ultimecia. This is the final event in the Final Fantasy VIII Collaboration Event, and is considered an epilogue to The Sleeping Lion.

Event Details

 * Ranked Event: September 23 - October 1, 2019
 * First Exhibition Event: October 1 - November 1, 2019
 * Second Exhibition Event: March 27 - end of service, June 2020
 * Event type: progressive Tower Battle

The region will be open to experience until the end of the Final Fantasy VIII Collaboration Event, but will only offer the ranked competition for the first week.

How to Participate

 * Select "The Transient Sorceress" from the Act 2 world map -- its own red spot.
 * This event is only accessible after a player clears the Runic Temple in Chapter 1

Story
Wol finds a shadow of Ultimecia... in Castle Ultimecia, of course. She is still determined to make Time Compression happen, and bring an end to all things... unless a hero can stop her. Wol says he's no hero, but he'll stop her anyway. She's ready for it.

After some sparring, Ultimecia notes that Wol certainly has the strength worthy of a hero. Wol still protests the title, but the shadow insists that the world has given him that role, and he cannot escape it. In the same way, she knows she is just a shadow of the real Sorceress, but will still play the part that fate and the world has forced upon her. To that end, she will push to be feared in her own right, knowing that the Hero will eventually take her down.

Gameplay
Play in this area works up a single chain of levels, from the beginning Primordia level up to the top Ragnarok level. As you work your way up the tower, the battles at each level will get progressively harder.

'''This event includes the use of the Draw System introduced in The Sleeping Lion. Foes have been balanced to expect this, so difficulty will ramp up VERY QUICKLY. You are HIGHLY encouraged to go finish off as much of that storyline as possible, or you will not get far in this run.'''

Each level features three skirmishes.
 * The first has mid-difficulty Bosses. Nothing special here, but it's a good opportunity to Draw some spells.
 * The second has a higher-difficulty Boss, which usually summons lesser fiend fodder to it. These extras can have some sweet Draw potentials, but can also overwhelm you if you let them pile up.
 * Iron Giant, for example, comes with the boon, which keeps you from Drawing spells until you Break it. It start out alone, but will use a new ability "Enemies come from beyond time and space!" to summon extra fiend fodder.
 * Dark PuPu summons help if it's alone. If you handle mob control well, this can be used to get insanely high level scores!
 * The third is always Ultimecia, with a varying elemental affinity. In the Phantasmic Coil, she summons two Guardians to her side.

Ultimecia
Ultimecia (Sicarius) has a few major new behaviors:

Ultimecia starts with a primary element, then shifts to her secondary element (Light) at 75% HP, then primary again at 50%, then Light again at 25%.

She will frequently summon Guardians to her opposite her current element, then draw powerful spells from those Guardians. It pays to break or kill them, unless you go with a nuke the boss as fast as possible strategy. One nice side effect is that you can draw from those Guardians, too, so you can possibly match her spell for spell.

Ultimecia has a icon on her status bar, which reduces by 1 with each turn she takes. When this count gets to zero, she casts an unavoidable super-attack that WILL kill you, ending the fight.

At the start of each of her turns, she also announces a countdown to her Ultimate ability, Time Compression.
 * The spell advances the fight by 2 turns.
 * Neither of you get any actions for those two turns, but...
 * This will give Ultimecia the ability to Double-cast or Triple-cast her spells. Very damaging! But you can get around this by Breaking her (or casting or  on her), making her skip some of the turns until it runs out.
 * Boons -- and ailments! -- all reduce their turn counters by 2, so anything with less than 2 turns remaining run out.
 * You suffer damage.
 * Ultimecia's Time Limit reduces by an extra 2 turns!

Event Map
"Some pasts are behind us, while others are yet to come. Even as the sorceress attempts to compress all pasts, presents, and futures into one singular moment, heroes rise to prevent her from obliterating all existence. Will they stand strong, or will her nefarious schemes come to fruition?"

- World Map description

The region has one path with a staircase up, leading up to the top at the 10th level. You cannot return to previous areas once they've been beaten.

After completing the Ragnarok area, you enter the "Phantasmic Coil" areas. This is a set of 5 areas that repeat in an infinite loop, also with an increasing difficulty with each area finished. On these levels, there is no fifth Rental Card allowed, and if you lose, you cannot use s to continue. A Prize of x5 is handed out for each loop of 5 completed.

However, there is a new addition, starting with this month. When starting the Phantasmic Loop, you are offered three spaces. These are shortcuts that will allow the better players to skip ahead to the high-difficulty loops without needing to slog through the lower-level stuff. rewards are similarly... erm, "compressed". Upon finishing the area, you're transported to The Phantasm as your starting point into the Phantasmic Loop. This is an irreversible jump -- once you complete one of the three areas, you're stuck on the Phantasmic Loop with that many "completions".
 * Novice starts you at Loop 1 (11 kills). same as has been.
 * Adept starts you at Loop 6 (36 kills).
 * Master starts you at Loop 21 (111 kills).

There are 20 total areas, including the Phantasmic Coil, shortcut areas, and the Starting area. There are 10 treasure chests. Since the treasure chest in the Phantasmic Coil regenerates on each pass, the region technically cannot be Completed.

Phantasmic Coil
The five levels after Ragnarok are set in an infinite loop, with a prize on the completion of the fifth area on each loop. Players cannot use s to continue the battle if they lose, and the fifth "rental" card is not available.

The skirmishes here have a pre-set collection of fiends, but after the 35th kill they will change to other fiends, and again after the 85th kill. The third skirmish always remains as described.

Ranking Rewards
Anyone who completes the first level should make it within the top 20,000 players. It will require a run or two through the Phantasmic Coil to breach the top 10,000.

The top 2,000 players will get s as a reward. These are used to open special high-end rewards in the Rift.

Notable Enemies

 * Ultimecia (Sicarius)
 * Fire Guardian -- draws Meteor: area Fire attack + Ultimate Gauge charge
 * Water Guardian -- draws Maelstrom: area Water attack + Cure
 * Wind Guardian -- draws Tornado: area Wind attack +
 * Earth Guardian -- draws Quakega: area Earth attack + Break gauge damage (clears Red space)
 * Light Guardian -- draws xxx: area Light attack +
 * Dark Guardian -- draws Gravija: area Dark attack +
 * Iron Giant -- summons other foes to his side. Defeat quickly or they'll overwhelm you!

Music

 * Region Map music -- FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC
 * various cutscenes -- The Extreme
 * Phantasmic Coil -- The Stage is Set